


This Time

by toodelicatee



Category: The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Homelessness, Implied Sexual Content, M/M, Poor Bruce Banner, Post-Avengers (2012), Science Boyfriends, Self-Hatred, Tony Stark Has Issues
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-10-26
Updated: 2015-10-26
Packaged: 2018-04-28 07:37:24
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,767
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5083357
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/toodelicatee/pseuds/toodelicatee
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>'...I wanted to hear your voice, to see if it's still the same.'</p><p>'Is it?' Tony thinks the room will explode for a moment, blood everywhere. He hasn't drank a drop but his head beats with the same intensity as his heart. </p><p>'No... it sounds sadder...'</p><p>'Pot, kettle, big guy.'</p><p>--</p><p>In which Tony learns the cyclical nature of loving someone unattainable, and how it leaves you aching.</p>
            </blockquote>





	This Time

**Author's Note:**

  * For [wuemsel](https://archiveofourown.org/gifts?recipient=wuemsel).



> This is for my dear friend Jen, who is my favourite writer and is all round wonderful. I love, love, love her work so I hope I do justice to her amazing prompt. I'm sorry this has taken so long I just wanted to get the tone right. I hope you like it. 
> 
> tw for implied depression, alcoholic indulgence, implied sexual content and homelessness.

When Tony first realises he wants Bruce to stay it's after Manhattan; he's pulling up outside the Port Authority to drop him off, because he'd felt uncomfortable with letting the man go alone, and there is something burning away in his chest like a fire. He reaches out to shake the doctor's hand. There is only about a metre between them but Tony feels like the space is infinite.   
  
Bruce reciprocates the action somewhat reluctantly. His fingers feel unsteady and his palms clammy.  
  
'It's a shame,' Tony says.  
  
The doctor nods, some small understanding in his eyes, or maybe it's acknowledgement.  
  
'You know, my offer still stands if you want to take it up. Stark Tower's big enough for another one, big guy,' and Tony smirks to mask whatever desperation he can feel seething behind his teeth.  
  
'I don't think it is,' Bruce's smile is gentle, but sad. His words are about more than they seem; he is talking about the beast that sits beneath his tan skin, the rats that live inside his skull and scratch his mind raw, and how he dreams every night of dying and wakes up drenched in cold sweat and disappointment, and Tony thinks  _you're right,_ because not even Stark Tower is big enough to hold all of that.  
  
'So, now what? You're on your own?'  
  
Bruce nods, he says, 'Same as always,' and Tony sees a tired man.  
  
'Well, you don't have to be.' He's not sure what he means by that. It's not an offer- it's not anything. The words just hang in the air and no one touches them at all.  
  
'Thank you for everything, Tony.'  
  
'Hey,  _you_  saved  _my_  life.'  
  
They kiss then, of course. Bruce's hands are not hungry but so damn soft as they touch Tony's face and snake around his waist. No one has ever been this gentle to him, wanting nothing in return, and Tony's unsure of everything because this feels like falling. And it's OK, if Bruce stays, everything will be OK.  
  
But as soon as they pull apart, something rots inside of him, and he's pretty damn sure it's his heart.  _Fuck._  
  
He slips Bruce a few thousand dollars in his backpack, without the other man noticing, and they part without much else being said. Tony tries to ignore the pang in his gut when Bruce does not look back once.  
  
\--  
  
Tony's never felt like this before, not really. He thinks:  _yes, this is probably love but I do not want it._  
  
\--  
  
Afterwards, he drinks until he's sick and when he's got his fingers down his throat, crouched over a toilet bowl, he thinks of how Bruce must have felt with a gun propped in his mouth. He doesn't need his hands then, as he vomits immediately.  
  
\--  
  
Everything about the news he despises, but it's on in the background while he's making coffee and he's not even paying it any attention, until he hears the name Bruce Banner.  
Tony jerks around to see a grained image of his former comrade, in India. The anchor says something about being wanted for questioning in connection with New York, but all that washes over Tony. Bruce is alive and it's only then that he realises how much of a shock that is. He hasn't found a way to kill himself yet.  
  
He inspects the images closer, sees the doctor is surrounded by patients young and old. He hopes Bruce can save them, for his sake as well as theirs. He needs some kind of purpose.  
  
\--  
  
Things fall apart with Pepper pretty quickly; it feels like they were made of paper mache, and something is crushing them, breaking them. It doesn't hurt Tony as much as he'd expected it to. In fact, he barely feels anything when she finally leaves.  
  
He watches as she folds her clothes in the suitcase, and with every crease he feels more numb, more indifferent.  
  
\--  
  
Even when he eats, he's still as empty as a shell and it fucking kills him. Bourbon can't fill up the hollowness that seems to be possessing whatever it is his body's made of. He's  never really felt this pathetic before, like a piece of wood on a river and he has no chance of seeing the shore.  
  
Pepper calls him and tells him to get a grip, to let go of whatever's eating him. She's an idiot. Nothing's eating him, that's the problem. He  _wants_  to be consumed because at the moment he feels like an island.   
  
Tony feels like a prick for complaining because Bruce has spent his life as an island. He pulled a goddamn trigger to try and find some small salvation. A deep-wrenching envy hits Tony at that notion. He thinks he must be sick in the head for being jealous but he can't help it- Bruce was able to pull the trigger.  
  
Tony doesn't think he ever could. He hates himself even more for that.  
  
\--  
  
The next person he fucks after Pepper is a guy, after some shit party. His mouth feels cold as it moves slowly over Tony's body and closes around his cock. When he comes it's obviously fantastic but a few seconds later he's back to feeling nothing again. The other man whispers sweet nothings against his neck as he leaves a mark, probably, and all Tony can do is wonder what Bruce might taste like.  
  
\--  
  
A week or so later, and Tony's fucked at least four other men and three women; toward each he has felt even more nonchalant than the last and he wonders why he's still bothering. He's constantly feeling nothing and it's scaring him shitless in all honesty. Before Bruce left, he'd never experienced a numbness like this. Time's supposed to heal but each night he bleeds dry only to wake up with enough blood to lose all over again. Some twisted cyclical drainage he wishes to not be a part of.  
  
He's screwing someone called Max who looks a bit like James Dean. Normally that would have lit Tony up a little but all he cares about is coming- he does so, and it is basically insignificant.  
  
Max talks about love and Tony's eyes start to droop. He doesn't care about this man or what he's got to say. Brutal, but truthful. He snaps to attention only when his cellphone rings. The number he doesn't recognise but he answers it anyway, his voice groggy with the need for sleep.  
  
'Hello,' he says, even he's aware of the vagueness in his own voice; it's so permanent now.  
  
'Tony, you picked up, I didn't think you would, oh God, thank you. Thank you for answering, I should have trusted you would, I'm sorry, so sorry Tony, ' a completely drunken voice babbles. It takes Tony at least half a minute to realise it belongs to Bruce.  
  
'Oh my God,' he sits up, 'where are you? What have you been drinking?'  
  
'Just... I'm just so alone, you know... I was by myself at this bar, and I wanted to forget how fucked up I am, so I tried some absinthe, and then there was whiskey and now I'm...' he stammers like an idiot, 'I'm drinking gin, and I'm sorry,' he's crying now, full-on crying, and Tony feels his heart in his chest for the first time in months, as it breaks.  
  
'Where are you?' Tony's tone is dripping with care, all his senses alive and bursting. 'You're not in India?'  
  
'No, I'm in New York, I'm... I just really miss you, I wanted to hear your voice, to see if it's still the same.'  
  
'Is it?' Tony thinks the room will explode for a moment, blood everywhere. He hasn't drank a drop but his head beats with the same intensity as his heart.   
  
'No... it sounds sadder...'  
  
'Pot, kettle, big guy,' he tries to laugh, unsure of when he'd started trembling. There is an automatic silence which Tony breaks when he says, 'Stay where you are- I'm coming to get you.'  
  
\--  
  
JARVIS helps him locate the doctor. He finds him in a backstreet alley, shrunken and huddled in the gutter with a collapsed cardboard box around him. Tony absorbs it all, seeps at the same time, seeps out pain. He only has time to hold relief.  
  
'Fucking hell Bruce.' His knees hit the floor beside the man. The rain puddles completely ruins his trousers though he ignores this detail. Unimportant, like everything. Everything but this.  
  
Bruce looks like hell, but holding him feels holy so Tony's once more left confused. His hair has grown curly around his head and a semi-grey beard covers the bottom of his face. His clothes are sodden as he shakes within the embrace.  
  
'I didn't mean to wake you. You shouldn't have came out here.'  
  
Tony ignores the apology. He pulls Bruce closer, hoping that they'll fuse. He doesn't think he could let him go a second time.  _Won't. '_ How many nights have you spent out here?' __  
  
'I came back from India last month,' he sounds close to passing out, still intoxicated, 'sometimes I get to sleep in a nearby bar but most of the times they kick me out here.'  
  
'And you didn't come to Stark Tower because you don't think you deserve a home, am I right?'  
  
Bruce nods against his shoulder. His words come out strangled- somewhere between a sob and shaking breaths. 'When I was with you, for that short time before the Port Authorty, I forgot I hated myself. I should have stayed, I should have let myself be happy.'  
  
'This time,' Tony heaves them both up, 'this time you can.'  
  
This time feels like a good place to start.  
  
\--  
  
They always come together, or near enough. Bruce's moans fill up Tony's mouth and he feels like he'll burst apart; it's as close to perfect as either of them know.  
  
One night after fucking, the two of them are damp with sweat. It feels like some parody of the time, months ago, when Tony found his love sleeping drunk in the rain. There are mountains in between now and then, though.  
  
'You know, you saved my life too.'  
  
Tony's not sure what he means by that exactly, but he takes Bruce's face in his hands anyway, and he kisses his mouth as though finishing a frenzy.  
  
'You did,' Bruce's breath hitches, 'in a way no one else could.'  
  
'How?' Tony asks because he's hanging on every word.  
  
'Because I was a mess-  _am_  a mess- and you love me anyway. So then I think, life's sometimes nothing, but keep going anyway.'  
  
And Tony understands.  
  
\--  
  
FIN.

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you for reading, please leave feedback- negative or positive. I just love to hear what you felt.


End file.
